


something to strive for

by fypical



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Coming Out, F/M, Fix-It, Gen, M/M, See notes for warnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 18:56:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8172368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fypical/pseuds/fypical
Summary: Jack’s so used to keeping everything about himself walled off that he keeps assuming everyone else would be fine with doing the same. He has to live with that. Bitty shouldn’t have to.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I was a little disappointed by the update so, as always, I wrote fic to make myself feel better. Title from k.d. lang's cover of Joni Mitchell's "Jericho" (I'll try to keep myself open up to you / It gets easier and easier to do). 
> 
>  
> 
> (Warnings for coming out (of course), fairly mild mentions/discussions of overdose, addiction, implied homophobia (since it's the nhl), anxiety, self-hatred.)

Jack doesn’t drive straight to the Haus. Fifteen minutes into the drive, he pulls into a gas station, turns off the car, and sits there as the traffic passes him by.

Everyone would be awake, anyway, and he’s not sure he can deal with Chowder and Nursey and whoever else has decided to stay the night, not yet. Even Shitty, who’d called him with a whole speech prepared after the kegster to apologize for being so ‘fucking heteronormative’ – who’s the only person Jack’s ever told aside from his mother.

(Even with Parse, there hadn’t been anything actually said out loud; neither of them made any confessions, because that wasn’t something they did. Maybe if they’d talked a little more, instead of–– but he can’t blame everything that happened just on that. Jack knows he did his share of fucking up. That doesn’t make facing off against him any easier. )

He wasn’t the first person to come out to Shitty – and he definitely wasn’t the last, but Jack remembers how serious Shitty’d gotten when Jack had asked him not to say anything, like his request was a surprise or like it hadn’t even crossed Shitty’s mind. He’d gotten himself so fucking worked up about it, spent weeks agonizing over whether it was worth it to say anything or if he should just keep his mouth shut. It’s not like he was at Samwell to get a _date_ , anyway, but something about Shitty (something more than how badly Jack wanted to kiss him for a year and a half) had made him want to tell him – and Jack’s glad he did. _Thanks for telling me_ , Shitty had said, and then he’d bought Jack a coffee and talked at him about case studies in intro law for half an hour. Jack had been so high on adrenaline and relief, almost dizzy from it, that he doesn’t really remember the details. And if he’d looked a little closely at Jack before launching into a tirade about whatever it was that was getting on him about them, Jack had appreciated it.

He could call Shits right now and ask to talk, and he knows that Shitty’d listen. But he thinks talking about it, getting himself worked in circles, would just make things worse than he’s already made them.

Jack’s so used to keeping everything about himself walled off – the overdose, the anxiety, being bi – that he keeps assuming everyone else would be fine with doing the same. Assumes that his father’s constantly keeping disappointment from him, that everyone’s secretly waiting for him to trip up, that if he doesn’t show everyone what they’re expecting to see – the best version of himself – he might as well just give up entirely. Rationalizing only helps sometimes; most of the time the best he can do is keep a lid on it, stay in control.

There’s a reason he almost never drinks.

(There’s an entirely separate reason he can’t quite find humour in people so drunk they pass out on the lawn or throw up in someone’s room.)

The rain makes everyone’s headlights fuzzy, or maybe he’s just tired. It’s late, and Jack knows Bits isn’t expecting him to show up at the Haus _at all_ , let alone in the middle of the night. He could turn around and drive home, except Bitty had been so upset and so willing to just sit in it for the sake of fucking hockey.

He’s let hockey – whatever the hell his career might be in the future – stand in his way before, let it ruin his life, land him in the hospital. For a long time hockey was the most important thing in his life; more important than people, more than his own happiness. Jack has to live with that.

Bitty shouldn’t have to.

Jack turns the engine back on and rejoins the trickle of cars in the rain, wipers going full blast, until he gets to Samwell. There’s no parking at the Haus, because there never is. Jack parks up the road, but there’s nothing for it; he doesn’t even bother to pull his jacket up over his head because the rain’s going to go through it either way. He doesn’t run, because the last thing he needs to do is slip on a leaf or over a rogue tree root trying to escape the sidewalk and show up at the Haus with a black eye. He did text Bitty before getting out of the car, and by the time he makes it to the Haus’s porch, he’s a little worried that his phone’s a goner. It’s not, though, and Bitty hasn’t read the text which probably means he _is_ sleeping, but Jack knows Bitty’s probably never had his phone on silent in his life, so he texts him again, and then once more for good measure. And waits.

At least the porch is covered, not that it takes long for the door to open, and there’s a half-second of terror where Jack realizes that someone could be sleeping on the couch and think that he’s some night-stalker.

Bitty calls him a fool. Jack thinks he’s never been happier to be soaked to the bone and exhausted and insulted. 

They’re settled in bed before Jack realizes that Shitty’s bag was tossed in the corner of the entryway. 

He’d suggested brunch, at Jerry’s, because it meant that he wouldn’t be able to chicken out and just talk about muffins or the game or whatever, but instead they land on congregating everyone in the kitchen first. Considering Jack’s gotten all of two hours of sleep, he’s wide awake, the same buzz of adrenaline in his veins as when he’d told Shitty about being bi. He doesn’t know what Bits texted everyone – or, more accurately, Shitty and Lardo and Ransom and Holster – but Shitty’s the first person into the kitchen, yawning hugely and pouring some of the coffee that Bitty’d made, even though they’re going to brunch soon. He doesn’t seem that surprised that Jack’s here, and Jack can’t tell if that’s because he’s tired or because he heard Jack come in or because he just knows Jack that well. Probably some combination of the three.

Lardo’s not far behind, and that’s so far from a surprise that Jack barely notices he’s made the connection until Shitty hands her the coffee Jack had assumed was his. Holtzy and Rans must come down the stairs at exactly the same time – that’s how they come into the kitchen, anyway, with Holster muttering furiously about how it’s sacrilege that Ransom didn’t know Jerry’s had brunch. Jack would agree except he feels like he’s vibrating, a little, so he can’t really focus on it. Bitty’s leaned up against the counter right next to Jack, tucked in almost against Jack’s side, and Jack thinks he can feel Bitty shaking, too, where he’s got his arm braced on the counter behind Bits’s back. “Should we– ?” he whispers as Shitty and Lardo join Holster in ragging on Ransom, and Jack leans in. “Or should we wait ‘til– ?”

Jack shrugs. He’s not very good at judging when the timing is right. And they’ve talked about this before, about how he can almost never get the words out right; Bitty’d insisted that he be the one to actually say it, before anyone got to the kitchen, and that had been that. “Whenever you’re ready,” he murmurs, and very nearly jumps when Bitty clears his throat, loudly.

“Okay– okay! So!” Jack could kiss Bitty right here and now, he thinks, for taking all this on and telling their friends is pretty significantly a _baby step_ on the ladder of telling people, but on the other hand it’s also a major step in making sure they don’t both end up miserable. “Me and Jack are dating!”

Lardo puts her cup of coffee down, and she’s wearing the kind of smile Jack knows she reserves for when she’s really proud, the one she’d worn when Shits got accepted to Harvard and when Jack chose the Falconers and when Bitty’d scored his first goal.

Nobody looks _that_ surprised at all, and Jack feels the familiar crawl of panic up his throat, because he’d worked so hard to keep himself to himself.

“Wow,” says Ransom, and zeroes right in on Jack. “I mean, I figured Bitty was seeing someone, but– ” He’s grinning, too, big and excited. “That’s ‘swawesome, man.” 

It breaks the silence, and then everyone’s congratulating them, and relief hits Jack like a tidal wave. “What’d I fucking say, with the smiling?” Shitty crows, jabbing Jack in the shoulder, and then rounds on Bitty. “God _damn_ , good for you.”

He can’t hear what Lardo’s saying to Bitty, but he does hear her when she reaches over and sets her mug down in the sink with a clang. “Brunch? We’re celebrating.” 

“You remember this moment,” Holster hisses at Ransom as they head out the door and it all devolves back into chirping Ransom for replacing Jack as _rock lord_.

Jack spends all of brunch holding Bitty’s hand under the table. He doesn’t realize how big he’s smiling until he notices that his cheeks are hurting.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Sarah, Cait, Kate, Jasmine, and Allie for putting up with my yelling about Jack Zimmermann every time the comic updates. Find me on tumblr @ mycenaae.tumblr.com!


End file.
